Composed Of Stone And Wishful Thinking
by winter156
Summary: Dreams are often a reflection of one's life


Disclaimer: I, unfortunately, don't own any of these characters  
A/N: This is a fic for **jacquelee** (over on LJ) who donated to the FandomAid to help the Philippines. Thank you so much for your donation :)

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**Composed Of Stone And Wishful Thinking**

Petrichor_. That's the first thought that drives me out into the oncoming storm. It's the scent of ozone coming down from the heights of the stratosphere to kiss the earth in its wild dance of pressure and condensation. The distinct chill of the localized temperature drop prickles along my exposed skin, slicing through the thin layer of my clothing. (It's all a stark reminder of my humanity). The billowing black clouds stand tall and imposing like sentries marching into battle. The crack of thunder heralds the imminent deluge. The whipping snap of lightning illuminates the imposing darkness. And, in that moment of light, I see her. Proud and regal, riding in on a storm of her own making, she looks fierce and terrible and uninhibited._  
_  
The scent of water pervades my senses. Memories rush to the surface. I remember her; I remember us. Two opposites, mixing, melding, creating a beautifully incongruous whole. My breath used to create arid deserts, devoid of water, deserted places where life hid. But she, she has always been life both fluid and bending: water. She tranquil and serene like the element of her domain; me volatile and tempestuous like the element of my domain. We were two lionesses, strong, fierce, and uncompromising in our beliefs._  
_  
But, we were composed of stone and wishful thinking. And, the people forgot us. And, the heavens were rent with their unbelief. We weren't meant to last. But I have never been able to forget her, so I return willingly to her now. To drown in her._  
_My eyes stare at her through the falling rain. It's not a gentle storm. She is unhappy and unsettled; the storm raging her turmoil. I see her shift. The atmosphere crackles with awareness as she finds me. She dives off the thunderhead, all fearlessness and grace. She's before me in all her billowing glory before I've had time to appreciate all the power still held within her grasp._  
_  
Her gaze is deeply penetrating. Her green eyes lit with an unearthly glow, visible in the raging storm. I'm instantly reminded we are no longer equals. I left her. I walked away._  
_  
"I have searched for you," she reaches out as if to touch me but her hand falls away before she's made contact. Her stare is intense; I can feel it studying me, confirming that I'm real._  
_  
She calls my name. I haven't heard it in decades. It's spoken softly like dew on a spring morning. The yearning at its utterance is deep and quick; it leaves an ache that won't be soothed. She's speaking in a language long dead to the mortal tongue; she's speaking a name that hasn't existed in too long to contemplate._  
_  
"Helena," she stops speaking at my interruption, "I'm called Helena now." Water seeps through my clothes to my skin. It makes me shiver. She raises her hand to dissipate the storm, but I catch and hold it. Her green eyes pierce me with questions that I don't have the appropriate words to answer her with. I don't know how to explain to her that I've been running for years, hiding for years. I've been running all my life (this life), in fact, from her. I don't know how to articulate that I couldn't handle her solace and her comfort. I don't know how to say that she was enough for me, has always been enough, but I wasn't enough for her. I don't know how, so I hold her hand between my chilled fingers and hope she can read my eyes, my soul._  
_  
"Helena?" She tries the name with my new language on her tongue, working over the syllables slowly._  
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"Let it rain." Water sluices down and through me. I welcome it. "I haven't felt the rain in many years."_  
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I don't let go of her hand. She doesn't pull her hand away. The water pouring over us feels like ablution. Like absolution._  
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"I'm ready to go home." The atmosphere fills with static charge. Lightning flashes angrily. Thunder rumbles in displeasure._  
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"You can't." Her face doesn't give away her emotion, the severity of the storm does. "You knew that when you left." She's displeased. I don't know to whom or what it's directed, so I tread carefully for I remember there's a good reason her worshippers depicted her as a lioness._  
_  
"Egypt was never home," I'm defiant and haughty. She's a goddess but I was also once the lion headed goddess of power and I find it impossible to cower even though she could kill me with little more than a thought. I look at her steadily. I don't let go of her hand._  
_  
The storm settles to a gentle rain._  
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"What would you call me?" Because she understands what I can't say just yet. And, she's already acquiescing because she looked for me when I was lost; and, she has finally found me._  
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"Myka." She does more than resemble god, but that's the best human language can do: approximate._  
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Her eyes sparkle. And, I know I would now willingly drown in her. I'm already at the place where I can't breathe. I'm surrounded and engulfed by her, a tiny spec in the vastness of her being. "I know this place in South Dakota where we would fit right in."_  
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She smiles, indulging me as she has always done._  
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"It's a place filled with endless wonder."_

* * *

Movement wakes Helena. She's momentarily disoriented in the darkness of the room but a soft cough focuses her attention. She jerks out of her chair toward the raised hospital bed.

Stopping at the edge of the bed, Helena stares into pain-clouded, green eyes.

"Helena?"

"Myka," and there's so much Helena wants to say, but what comes out is, "I dreamt of us."

A frown of confusion mars Myka's face, but the drugs still running heavily through her system quickly smooth out her features leaving a small smile in its place.

"We were goddesses," Helena slowly bridges the gap between their hands; letting out the breath she didn't know she was holding when Myka curls her fingers around her hand, "and the Warehouse our refuge."

"Yeah," the word is small and jagged made sharp by the cough that could've been a laugh falling from Myka's lips. Helena knows that if she had the strength, Myka would argue that she's the farthest thing from a goddess. Goddesses don't wither and waste away of cancer; only mortals do.

Helena's grasp tightens around Myka's hand. She has thousands, millions, of words clamoring to get out but she has lost her voice. So, she stares helplessly at the prone figure of the woman she has no right to love. But whom she loves like she should not: desperately and wholly.

A drug-induced sleep starts pulling Myka under. Green eyes blink tiredly in an effort to fight off the imposed darkness, but Helena can see her losing the battle.

"Rest, Myka."

Myka's eyes close and her grip slackens.

"I leave you even in my dreams," Helena confesses quietly into the dark stillness that only exists in hospital rooms.

"It's okay," Myka's voice is slow with sleep and rough from the drugs, the breathing tube the doctors removed, and the anesthetic, "because you always come back to me."

Helena leans down and places a gentle kiss on a pale forehead. "Maybe it's time I stop leaving."

Helena listens to Myka's even breaths and holds her hand for several minutes before pulling the chair closer to the bed and retaking her self-appointed post. Dawn is far off, but she will stand guard through the night. It will all be better in the morning.


End file.
